Firefighters in Scranton often face delays due to the one-way streets that dominate the downtown area. A proposed $15 million infrastructure project aims to alleviate these issues by converting many of these streets into two-way roads, enhancing overall traffic flow throughout the city, according to Mayor Paige Cognetti.
“It’s not just about walking, it’s also about safe driving. It’s also about businesses having a more attractive frontage for their customers and to be able to have people coming in,” Cognetti stated. “It’s about getting around the courthouse in one full loop. It’s about having our streets make more sense and be safer for our first responders.”
The City Council will review the plans on Tuesday, Oct. 14. The proposals include converting one-way streets to two-way, swapping some traffic lights for stop signs, and introducing 69 new on-street parking spaces. Mayor Cognetti aims to initiate project bidding within the year.
The project plans also include widening curbs, making sidewalks more ADA compliant, and adding bike lanes. Together with previous work, the city will invest a total of $27.2 million in traffic and pedestrian safety improvements, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and various grants, according to Eileen Cipriani, the city’s business administrator.
“This is once-in-a-generation funding that we have through the end of next year to do it,” Cognetti noted.
Improvements years in the making
Securing approval from PennDOT was the initial step. The city’s engineering firm, Riley and Associates, submitted a comprehensive 4,000-page study.
“It’s the single biggest traffic improvement study in the PennDOT District that they’ve ever reviewed and approved,” Cipriani remarked.
The concept of transforming downtown originated during the administration of former Mayor Bill Courtright. In 2018, city planner Jeff Speck delivered a lecture at the University of Scranton that inspired the Downtown Scranton Connectivity Plan, developed in 2019 under Mayor Wayne Evans’ leadership.
The current proposed changes are a continuation of that plan, which includes a “full rebuild” of Lackawanna Avenue as suggested in a June 2023 connectivity review. Approximately 10,000 vehicles navigate the intersection of Lackawanna Avenue and the Biden Expressway daily.
This year’s project will also involve replacing sidewalks and curbs, installing period lighting, repairing a retaining wall on the 700 block of Lackawanna, and planting trees. Funding for these improvements comes from ARPA, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development Multimodal grant, and a state Local Share Account grant.
Avoiding tragedy
Key changes include the removal of some traffic lights on Biden, Linden, and Vine streets.
“If you’re driving and you see a yellow light, you often try to punch through it, and when you do that in a busy downtown where people are trying to walk, people are trying to get to work, they’re trying to walk their dog across the street to get back home to their apartment, that can lead to a tragedy,” Cognetti explained. “With a stop sign, most of the time, you have people that actually approach the stop sign slower.”
The new stop signs will be equipped with lights to alert drivers to the presence of pedestrians.
Wyoming Ave. to get bike lanes
Wyoming Avenue will soon feature bike lanes, and its width will be reduced. Cipriani noted that it currently matches the breadth of Interstate 81.
While Scranton aspires to be a bike-friendly city, officials are currently focused on ensuring motorists adapt to the forthcoming changes.
“We also need to make sure that we’re not biting off more than we can chew and not getting ahead of where drivers are at,” Cognetti said. “I think we need a lot more education about bicycles sharing the road before we would have bike lanes everywhere in the city.”
Cognetti highlighted that the city’s public investment is being mirrored by private investments.
“It shows that we, as the city, are investing $15 million just on this project alone to make our downtown safer and more attractive and better for businesses and residents,” she said. “You see, in parallel, the private investment that’s been coming into the city and continues to with new condos, with new apartments being built, with restaurants, with coffee shops, bars, shops.”
Projects at a glance
The plans include:
- Converting Biden, Linden, Adams (south of Vine Street), and North Washington Avenue from one-way to two-way streets.
- Replacing some traffic lights with stop signs on Biden, Linden, and Vine Streets.
- Upgrading sidewalks and enhancing crosswalk visibility.
- Increasing lighting and tree planting.
- Narrowing lane widths.
- Adding 69 new on-street parking spaces.
- Installing bump-outs at crosswalks to shorten crossing distances for pedestrians.
Completed road safety enhancements:
- Repainted around 500 crosswalks citywide.
- Enhanced 16 school zones with thermoplastic pavement markings stating “slow school.”
- Installed new stop signs in 10 different Scranton locations.
- Improved nearly 5,000 street signs.
